static around a lost sound in a song
by callmesandy
Summary: "Still clean," Pacey said. "Six months and two weeks." "Good," Joey said, with obvious relief. (pjo)


Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening quote from Rachel Eliza Griffiths's Shareef & Stella, Snowlit. For the trope_bingo spots wing fic, first time/last time. Thanks to A for beta help!

* * *

 _I'm moving_  
 _like static around a lost_  
 _sound in a song_  
 _you won't remember._

"I had to come and see it myself with my very own eyes," Pacey said, smirking at Joey. Joey rolled her eyes in a very predictable response.

"This is the kind of thing that happens when you decide to get a MFA," Pacey continued, pacing around her. "Oh, I know, I know, you're just being a good friend, supporting one of your fellow masters in fine arting. And you oh so helpfully volunteered without asking what it is was you would be doing." At the tone of a bell, Joey shifted from one ballet position to another. Pacey had no idea about ballet positions, he was just guessing from barely remembered conversations back in Joey's junior year when she took ballet.

"So now you're some kind of angel, seraph? Cherubim? I only know those names from reading a Wrinkle in Time at yours and the board of education's insistence. But you're basically standing in a room, wearing wings. Which are very nicely done, by the way. Did your fellow student make these?"

Joey glared at him and then at the brochures on the table at the entrance. Joey was one of ten people wearing huge elaborate feathered wings on their back while standing posed in leotards and leggings. Nine of them were standing, the man in the wheelchair moved his wheelchair to a different position. It was a pretty inclusive and diverse selection of people, though they all looked to be under 30. It was ageist, Pacey thought. He was going to say that to Joey when the exhibition was done.

He skimmed the brochure and saw that the artist, the man in the wheelchair, had made the wings. He wondered if Joey would get to keep them. They would look amazing in her bedroom, if her bedroom hasn't changed in the eight months since Pacey had been in it.

Pacey watched the bell ringing position changing seraphim (it was the name of the exhibit) for another ten minutes. He left to get coffee and even got Joey one and then hesitated outside the door. Maybe she had someone meeting her. Jen would have told him if Joey had gotten engaged or married. But that didn't preclude the possibility of a new guy. Someone serious, even. Someone who would be here making Pacey feel like an ass for assuming Joey wouldn't have someone waiting for her.

He went inside anyway. He could give Joey's date the coffee, he decided.

The last bell went off and the artist wheeled around telling everyone to go and getting congratulations from people who'd understood the performance piece a lot more than Pacey. When the guy passed by, Pacey did say, "Those wings are amazing, man."

"Thanks," the guy said, with a genuine wide smile. Maybe Joey was dating the artist. Joey didn't generally go for friendly and outgoing, though. Pacey excepted, of course, and he hadn't been that friendly and outgoing most of the times he and Joey had dated.

He walked over to Joey. "Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?"

"Shut up, Pacey," she said. He handed her the coffee and she took it. She sipped a little and smiled at him. "Thank you for remembering how I like my coffee."

Pacey felt a flash of pain, a phantom limb ache of three shitty proms. He smiled, though, and said, "Thank you for not changing your taste in the last eight months."

"It has not been eight months," Joey said. "I saw you three weeks ago."

"I haven't bought you coffee in eight months," Pacey said.

"Did you buying this have strings attached? Is this invisible conditions attached coffee?" She sounded a little angry and a lot teasing.

"It's no strings attached coffee. I was briefly using the coffee buying as a metaphor for us dating but I stopped after that one sentence," he said.

"Thank goodness, because I'd much rather you ask if I'm dating someone than getting into some kind of rigamarole about if anyone is buying me coffee," Joey said.

"Maybe I'm buying coffee for someone," Pacey said.

"You're not," Joey said. "When you're dating, you generally shave." She was still smiling at him. She'd already removed the wing harness and was just holding it by the wide strap. The artist came by and told Joey where to put the wings and off she marched and Pacey followed.

"You know, maybe I finally found a woman who appreciates a manly beard," Pacey said. Joey grabbed her purse from the anteroom where she'd stashed the wings.

"That's not a manly beard, that's some lazy Miami Vice wannabe stubble," Joey said. "Are you going to follow me home?"

"I was thinking of walking beside you but if you'd prefer I follow at a sinister pace, I could be persuaded," Pacey said.

She stopped and looked at him with her very serious Joey Potter face which he very much deserved. "How are you, really?"

"Still clean," Pacey said. "Six months and two weeks."

"Good," Joey said, with obvious relief. "Sorry I keep checking."

"You have every right," Pacey said.

He followed her to the subway and they sat down next to each other.

"But I would like to be friends at least. I thought we could, you know, talk."

"You and I will never be friends," Joey said. She stood up. "Here's my stop. Wanna see my new apartment?"

"Even though we'll never be friends?" He followed her because he always would.

"I mean we've dated too many times to ever really be friends. There's always sex between us and love and all of the times we broke up and you dumped me and I dumped you," Joey said.

"You were totally justified the last two times," Pacey said. "Not the first time you dumped me, though."

"And you were justified the one time you dumped me?" She was smiling as she looked at him. "Maybe we can be friends. Do you want to be my friend?"

"Of course," he said. "Here I am, being friendly. Being a friend to you, walking you home."

"But you want more, if you could have that. Like the secret service," she said.

"Sure," Pacey said. "But I'll take what I can get. You just said we'll never be friends and invited me back to your place. I'm not the only one who's got the secret service."

"Okay, in the original simile, you said wanting to kiss me was like the secret service, always there. So I don't have the secret service, and I don't always want to kiss you," Joey said. She went upstairs and he followed her. She let him into a studio apartment that looked like almost exactly what he'd expect from Joey the MFA student's apartment. She already had a pair of wings hanging over one of the windows.

"He made you wings," Pacey said. "I was wondering if you got to keep the wings, but he already made you some."

"Jonah is incredibly talented," Joey said. "He did a whole bunch of wings last year for a project and I convinced Bessie to buy these for me. They're amazing."

"That's what I said," Pacey said. "To Jonah, at the performance art piece. Which I did not understand at all. But those wings were amazing."

She sat down on her bed. "If we get back together, I will never stop worrying you're going to get high again. I'm sorry, that's the reality."

"I know," he said. He sat down next to her. He recognized the quilt on the bed and the pillowcases. It was probably the same bed she'd had in her last apartment. They'd had a lot of incredibly satisfying sex on this bed. He wondered idly if the tiny bag of coke he'd stashed in the headboard was still there. "But the first time, I just quit using. I went to the meetings, I didn't use but I never really dug into anything, there was not a lot of deep examination. This time, I did actual rehab. 28 days, group therapy and it was nothing at all like the Sandra Bullock movie."

"I love that movie," Joey said. "Viggo Mortensen is so hot. Didn't we actually see that in the theater? You took me on a date. And I was dating this guy, two months ago, absolutely obsessed with the Wire, have you heard about that tv show? There was a guy from 28 Days in it."

"You were dating a guy obsessed with the Wire or you are dating a guy obsessed with the Wire?" He couldn't stop staring at the headboard of the bed.

"We broke up a month ago," Joey said. "And yup, a week later, I came to say hi to you. We're both pretty predictable."

He stood up and walked over to the window, his back against it. He said, "You know the top piece on the right side of that headboard comes right off? You can pull it off and then kind of screw it back in."

She glared at him, angry. "You motherfucker." She opened it up and pulled out the baggie. "Do you want this?"

"Not in the slightest. I am standing over here and I told you about it so you could deal with it," he said. He was not going to get her back ever ever.

She marched into the bathroom and he heard the toilet flushing. She came back in and screwed the top back on. "Did you hide coke anywhere else?"

"Nope," he said. "I can go."

"Excellent idea," Joey said. She held the door open.

Pacey could recite with absolute certainty all the stressors in his life that had contributed to the first three weeks he'd been using, but he also knew that everything after that was just basic loser level addiction. He should have found a better way to deal with his sister Kerry dying from cancer and his parents getting divorced. "I never missed a chance to be stupid," he said.

His sponsor made a blah blah hand gesture. "Your self-pity is not helpful to your recovery, Witter."

"You say that a lot," Pacey said. "Is that helpful for my recovery? Maybe I need someone who can come up with a new way of saying that."

"Sorry I lack the verbal acuity to find new ways to say making all this a blame game will not keep you clean."

"See, that's a new way," Pacey said. He smiled. "Shelve the self-pity, Pacey. Try that one. Slice away the self-pity. Filet the self-pity, char the self-pity."

"You know a lot of cooking terms. You should be a chef."

"I'm only a sous-chef," Pacey said.

He walked home to his very crappy apartment that he shared with three other guys. None of whom used drugs, so everything could have been crappier. Except only one of his roommates was in recovery, the other two just managed to not use drugs. Pacey wished he'd taken that path.

To his complete happy surprise, Joey was sitting on the stoop. She said, "I just came by, you know, in the area."

"No, you weren't. But I'm thrilled to see you, you adorable liar," he said. He sat down next to her. "Am I forgiven?"

"I already forgave you for that," she said. "I forgave you for using the first time, and I forgave you the second time. The coke was from the second time and you didn't have to tell me so. We're good."

"Try to be friends good?" He probably was transparently desperate, especially to her.

"Sure," she said. "Can I come inside?"

"God, no, this place is a dump." He stood up and took her hand, dragged her up to standing. "This place on the corner, though, great french fries."

"I love french fries," she said, drawing out the love.

They ate and talked. They did the same thing a week later. They stuck to safe crowded places and at Pacey's choice, the kind of restaurants that didn't have a bar or wine list. "I'm not actually probably an alcoholic, but it just seems safe to stay away if I can," he said.

"You used to drink," Joey said. "But this time you went to rehab, right?"

"Yes," he said, sitting back. "You know, I was at rehab with the most boring bunch of addicts you can imagine. You want stories of self-destruction and awful deeds, and none of us had that. Me included."

"That must have been sad for you," she said. "No 'I blew my dealer when I ran out of money' tales around the campfire?"

"Well, that's a pretty boring story," Pacey said, blushing. "It's not like he was unattractive."

"Are you serious?" Joey looked a little repulsed. He really was never getting her back.

"Yes, at one point in my addiction, when we were not together, I was waiting on my paycheck and the guy I bought from -"

"Your drug dealer," Joey said, frowning.

"Sure, yes, my dealer. Who was gay. And thought I was cute. He said he'd throw me a little bump if I blew him. But that's barely interesting," he said. "I was never near a gun that I knew about, I never got arrested, I didn't run anyone over."

"I'm finding this blowjob story pretty interesting," Joey said.

Pacey shrugged. "It was one time. Never did it again. But junkies on tv have great stories."

"Our relationships had a certain gritty TV quality, some kind of HBO show," Joey said. "I've definitely read books like that."

"Are you going to write books like that?"

"Not based on us, I am done with that. I finished up with that when I applied for my MFA," Joey said. "I'm writing dystopian short stories with fantasy elements. I might throw in that blowjob story."

"We weren't together," he said.

"Because that's why I'm upset," Joey said. She inhaled and exhaled noisily. "I hate thinking about you like that, doing that."

"I wasn't, though. The people I bought drugs from were my fellow students and my coworkers. The worst that ever happened to me was my dad and Doug catching me, you dumping me twice, and a sinus infection," Pacey said.

"Then why even quit?" She was still frowning.

"Because my dad caught me and you dumped me twice and I was miserable all the time," Pacey said.

"But the blowjob doesn't make the list of reasons to quit," Joey said.

"It just wasn't that traumatizing," Pacey said. "Not as much as it appears to be to you."

"I am traumatized," Joey said. "Oh, I don't know if you have enough money, but Jonah is selling the wings from his installation. If you wanted a pair."

"I don't know where I'd keep 'em, but yes. I would," Pacey said.

"Unfortunately, Jonah will not accept a blowjob," Joey said.

"I'll keep that in mind. You might be underestimating how good I was, you know," Pacey said.

"Ew, stop," Joey said.

To his surprise, she came back the next week.

She opened with "I probably overreacted to your boring blowjob story."

"Maybe the way I told it made it boring," he said, smiling at her. "You get to react any way you want. Unrelatedly, I saw Jack this week."

"Did you give him a blowjob?"

"You know he's dating my brother, right? That's just wrong," Pacey said.

"Is Doug speaking to you?" Joey looked concerned, he liked when she was concerned about him.

"Yes. Once I was clean for six months, so a few weeks ago," Pacey said. "But if I ever use again, he'll cut me out of his life forever."

"That seems unfair," Joey said.

"Seems fair to me," Pacey said. "I broke his fucking heart, and I did it twice. Why should he do that to himself again?"

"You're an addict," Joey said.

"Which means I'm pretty likely to relapse so he's being smart," Pacey said.

Joey was back to glaring at him. "Am I being stupid then?"

"I'm trying to stay away from self-pity and not be so shitty to myself, so I say no," Pacey said. "Sorry about the rhyme, my sponsor started saying it that way."

"You should be," she said. "I have your wings at my place."

"That's probably the best place to keep them until I can move out of the current hellhole," Pacey said. "They're too nice to let my roommates near."

"I'm not going to hold onto them forever so you always have an excuse to come to my place," she said.

"You saw right through my fiendish plan," Pacey said. "Someday I'm going to have my own restaurant and those wings are going to be in the decor."

Joey slowly smiled, her eyes crinkling up. "That sounds beautiful. Wait, are you going to serve chicken wings, like a chicken wing themed restaurant?"

"No, no theme, just good food. Fresh ingredients, fancy New York dishes and macaroni cheese but with nothing added or gastronomic twists. Maybe in Capeside," Pacey said.

"Go back to Capeside, the thriving community able to support your restaurant?" Joey raised her eyebrows.

"There can be more than Leery's Fresh Fish," Pacey said. "The French restaurant closed so the market is bigger now."

"I loved that place," Joey said. "Dawson took me there."

Pacey smiled. "So we're skipping over me seeing Jack who has never once stopped being my friend even at my lowest point and going to Dawson, who isn't speaking to me."

"You don't count not being friends with Dawon on your list of horrible drug losses and reasons not to use," Joey said.

"I don't think that was the only water under that particular bridge in that case. We had a lot of reasons to be angry with each other. 10 coked out phone calls in the course of one night was just the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back," Pacey said. "Do I miss the guy? Sure. But we have a lot more to fix than me being clean." He looked at her fingers, her onyx black nail polish. She never used to wear nail polish. He said, "Unless you've already started working on him."

"We talk, we talk every week. I mention you because you are in my life," Joey said. "I also mention my grades, my idea for a series centering around an ambitious, bitter girl living on the outskirts of what used to be a great city, and she's not saving the world or changing the government, she's just trying to survive."

"I like the sound of that," Pacey said.

It was like they had made a date, a regular plan, to meet at the diner once a week and talk about their lives. Pacey saved up nice stories to tell her. Joey mostly talked about her writing and her rejection letters. She was going to make a mosaic out of them.

"But you also have accepting letters. You've had three stories published," Pacey said. "You got paid for them."

Joey shrugged. "The current ratio is 40 to 1."

"You were always good with math."

He kissed her on the cheek when they said goodbye and hugged her. He wished for more on a regular basis but he would take her being his friend. He'd take anything.

It was Wednesday, so he had seeing Joey to look forward to. He had a voice mail message from Dawson, his first in at least a year. It was pretty guarded, but for a brief moment he remembered everything he liked about Dawson, everything nice the guy had ever said about him when no one else said anything. He was definitely going to call him back. But during breakfast, he called Andie, because she always answered his calls, much like her brother. Andie didn't love medical school but she was intent on finishing at least the first year. "I can do it, I know I can," Andie said.

"It's okay if you don't, too," Pacey said. "I know you just hear slacker when I talk, but sometimes slacking is the right choice."

"You were always able to convince yourself of that," Andie said.

He was at work and he went into the break room to just sit the fuck down for a split second. He spotted three of his co-workers hunched over the table against the wall. He could see the coke they were snorting, he could almost smell it. He thought and exhaled and one of the guys said, "Pace, you want a line?"

"No, not at all," Pacey said. He said it right away and it was only in his head that it took him an hour to say it. "You could be slightly discreet, dude."

"Right, right," one of the other guys said. He sang, "They tried to make Pacey go to rehab, he said yes yes yes."

"Yes, I did," Pacey said. He left.

He left, he left, he left. When he was off work, he called Joey from his apartment. "Hey, I have to skip tonight."

"Why? I want my french fries with a faint smell of stale cigarettes rising from the seats," Joey said. "Do you ever think about how much people must have smoked in that place before it was illegal for that smell to linger so long?"

"I haven't thought about that but now that you bring it up, I'm pretty sure there was probably a cloud in there. It's a 24/7 joint," Pacey said. "And honestly, I'm going to a meeting."

"Oh," Joey said. "Oh, okay. Can I come?"

"Um," Pacey said. "I guess. If you really want to. But, what's said in there stays in there, so no using anything you hear for your stories unless it's me talking about you, which I won't since you're there."

"Or I can not go, sorry, you might want to talk about me," Joey said. "I'm forcing myself here, I just, honestly, I always wonder and it's not for me to intrude."

"You can if you want, there are always people who sit in the back and don't participate. I need to leave right now to get there, so here's the address." He told her and he left.

He didn't notice Joey arrive but he saw her towards the end of the meeting when he stood to share.

He talked about the guys at the restaurant and how long it had felt for him to say no. He said, "Even though I did and I left, I still feel like a little bit of failure. All sorts of people go their whole entire lives and never once say yes or they say yes once and never again and it's just that easy for them. I wouldn't mind some easy." He rubbed his chin. "But uh, I was sitting here thinking about second chances. The first time I got clean, it was just because my brother and my father, both police officers of long standing, came into my room, my childhood bedroom while I was snorting off my hand. And my timing was great, because we were all back in town to see my sister's gravestone finally put up. So that was, really, just great times. I'm not sure why it even penetrated my brain, I'd already been dumped completely justifiably by the love of my life."

Pacey shrugged. "I went to meetings and I stayed clean and it felt incredibly easy. Probably because I was going through the motions and never actually put much thought into why I was doing this or even why I stopped. I had a job I liked, got the love of my life back which I did not deserve and one day I just thought, well, clearly I don't need to stay clean, I can handle it. Spoiler alert: I could not handle it." Pacey smiled and kept his eyes on his hands.

"But now I have a second chance to do it right. My sister Gretchen and I pooled our tiny savings and paid for me to go to rehab and I feel like that really worked because these days, staying clean is hard. And it wasn't even, you know, I got dumped again, so no love of my life. My brother stopped talking to me. But I woke up one morning and I was miserable. Unbelievably miserable. I heard from a guy who sold me drugs that another guy I knew from work and buying drugs had had a heart attack at age 29. Because that shit'll kill you, which I knew, but now I really knew."

He said, "Anyway, second chances. This is my second chance and I can't blow it, if you can forgive the almost pun."

Someone laughed and Pacey looked up. He thought he saw Joey still sitting in the back but he looked away quickly. He was the second to last person to share and then it was over. He poured himself a cup of horrible coffee and looked around for Joey and she was nowhere. That seemed like a really bad thing. He ditched his coffee and headed outside to call her and see where she was.

Joey was sitting on the stairs outside the church, looking out on the street. He knew the set of her shoulders well enough to know she was crying. So he sat down next to her and tentatively put his arm around her. She leaned into him and sniffled. He said, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" She glared at him and he was felt 15 again, barely realizing how hot she was.

"I don't know, you're crying, I was talking, I assume the two are connected. I'm being a narcissist," he said.

"No, you're not. I'm just, I'm the love of your life, huh?" She had thankfully stopped crying but her face was puffy and her eyeliner was smudged. She wiped at her face and it made not a bit of difference to her make up.

"Duh," he said. "I've really only been in love twice in my life and Andie's not the one I keep dating and chasing after so, yeah."

"Please don't ever say that to Audrey," Joey said.

"I won't," Pacey said. "But she knows."

"There are things you know, and things you can handle someone saying to your face," Joey said. She stood up fast, and then turned to look at him. "I'll see you next week. I'll come by your place, okay?"

"Okay," he said. He was definitely bewildered. "I'm moving, though." He had just decided. No way he was letting Joey in that craphole, it was time to get a new place. He could do that in a week, of course he could.

Joey just looked at him, skepticism all over her face.

"I'll text you the address once I sign the lease," Pacey said, smiling.

Six days later, Jen was helping him move in. "My heart," she said. "My heart condition means I can only put away books and hang up pictures."

"Okay," Pacey said. "You know, that is actually totally fine by me, because I have just finished putting together this stupid desk."

"How much of this furniture did you buy in the last three days?"

Pacey looked over at Jen in her adorable overalls, slowly removing books from a box, flipping through each one. "I bought the bed, the desk and the mattress. I have been saving up for this, you know. I started as soon as I paid Gretchen back."

"For rehab? I don't think she ever thought of that as a debt," Jen said. "You have no stuff, how do you have no stuff?"

"When I was in rehab, she went to my place and threw away everything that had coke or speed in it or seemed like it might have. That was almost all my clothes, a bunch of my books, half my dvds," Pacey said. "Everyone needs to declutter their lives."

"You don't have many pictures, either," Jen said. She was looking through his pictures.

"I didn't take many when I was high," Pacey said.

"I have some nice pictures from Joey and Audrey's graduation, if you ever wanted. Low on cleavage, lots of satisfied smiles," Jen said.

"I'm good," Pacey said. "I went to it, but I was way in the back, I don't need to be reminded of that day."

Jen held up the picture from Andie's farewell party in their senior year. "Aw, I have this one, too."

"We all do. You know what's funny, the way you went to all those gay straight alliances meetings swearing you were straight and then suddenly, you're bisexual. Or lesbian," Pacey said.

"I saw Audrey naked," Jen said. "It changed everything. Also, I prefer bisexual."

"Noted. And I remember Audrey naked, it was a stirring view," Pacey said.

"You know, when you and Joey get back together and get married and Audrey's at the wedding, go ahead and say Joey's the love of your life, but don't say you've only had two and then mention Andie as the other one," Jen said.

Pacey grimaced. "I said that when I was on speed and also cocaine and I did not know Audrey was at the bar. I've apologized. I'm sure she's told you I apologized."

"Sure, but you can't take away how mean it is. The reality is mean," Jen said.

"I lied to her, I know, I'm a bad guy," Pacey said.

"Yes, you are," Jen said.

Jen started trying to sketch out an artful arrangement of the photos. Pacey said, "Leave room at the top, I have wings coming in."

"Those huge feathered ones like Joey has?"

"Yeah, but mine are with peacock feathers, harvested ethically, apparently," Pacey said. "I'm gonna put them right there and I'll hang them in my restaurant."

"Why do you want to move back to Capeside to have a restaurant?"

"It's my home," Pacey said. "I like the redemptive aspect of it, black sheep makes good, gives back. It's the stirring ending of the movie even if I don't get the girl."

He thought the place looked pretty good for a third floor walk up studio. He totally didn't spend a good ten minutes sitting on his bed, sweating and looking around for something to fix while he waited for her. He did all of those things. Finally she knocked and said, "Okay, Pacey, I believe you moved now."

He opened the door for her and took the heavy wings from her. He immediately got on the bed to hang them up. Joey browsed the room, poked her head into the bathroom and then leaned against his new desk, watching Pacey carefully maneuver his wings to stay spread without hurting them. He said, "Hey, nice to see you, thanks for walking these up."

"I had another reason," Joey said. When he looked over his shoulder, she was looking at her shoes. It seemed like a great sign.

He sat down on the bed and said, "Hit me. But if it's literal violence, avoid the face and hands."

She handed him a stapled small stack of papers. Not quite a stack, it was only six pages. He couldn't think of how to describe it while he glanced at the front page. It had to be bad. He said, "This is the last time I will tell you this."

"That's the title," Joey said. "It's getting published. Story number four out in the world. I'm not going to change anything, not a single word, but I thought I'd let you read it before it's out there."

"Thanks for the completely not at all ominous warning," Pacey said. He read it anyway. It reminded him of the time he'd walked the wrong way, missed a step and fell down four feet from a stone wall onto some flat oily asphalt below. He read it all.

He looked up at Joey's carefully blank face. "It's really great, Jo," Pacey said. "It should be published."

"Thank you," she said.

"But, um, my dick -"

"It's not about you. Or me. It's fiction. I didn't say those things and you didn't either. Sure, there are incidents and feelings that you can tell are a facet of me and you, but it's also about the feelings, and because it's fiction, it's a narrative, a story with symbols and motifs," she said quickly.

"Because your feelings think I'm not circumcised," Pacey said.

"Maybe some of it isn't about you," Joey said.

"I could be projecting but everything except those two paragraphs on the uncut penis seemed to be about me, or us, or your feelings. I mean, that's my balls in this page long description of my dick, but then there's this foreskin there," Pacey said. He managed a smile.

Joey rolled her eyes and sat down next to him on the bed. She took the story from him and put it to the side. "I told you, it's fiction."

"Yeah, you were not so sexual in my memory when you were 16," Pacey said.

"You know I had sex with three other guys before we got back together the second time," Joey said. Her voice sounded like she was smiling. He kept his eyes on her feet in her red knit socks.

"I didn't say you weren't so sexual when you were 18 or 19, I said 16," Pacey said.

"And after we broke up, I had sex with another 5 different men before we got back together again," Joey said.

"You seem like you really want to tell me how many people you've had sex with," Pacey said.

"15," Joey said. "I know, you're at, like, 100 or something."

"Wow, not even close, come on," Pacey said. "You were number 3, remember? And there was only, like, 5 between Joey and Pacey, the second time around. Another 6 between round two and three." Joey was flexing and pointing her feet. She'd been doing that for years. He said, "Only two between round three and four."

"So are you only one more than me? I don't believe that," Joey said.

"There was only one girl between you dumping me and rehab. I did sleep with a girl in rehab, which was a bad idea and didn't work out. Honestly, that's it."

"18, you've had sex with 18 different women," Joey said, a little disbelieving.

"True story," Pacey said. "I mean, I also think I'm circumcised, so should you believe when I talk about the things I think my dick did?"

"I told you, fiction. The uncut part was someone else's dick, obviously. And I don't know why you think I have your balls so perfect, it was pretty generic," Joey said.

Pacey chuckled. "How did those 1000 words on the franken-fiction-dick go over with your class?"

"It made exactly the people you'd think uncomfortable," Joey said. She was laughing a little, too. "But the professor thought it was great."

"It's a great story," Pacey said. "I thought you weren't doing it stuff drawn from your life, though."

"It's the last time I'm doing it, never again, past expiated, done," Joey said.

"Thus the title," Pacey said.

"Also it's a homage to Lorrie Moore's classic 'People like that are the only people here.'"

"Of course, sure, I got that," Pacey said. "Thanks for showing me. I mean it, it's really good."

"Thank you," she said, looking straight ahead. "Why are we here?"

"I live here," Pacey said. "The things I used to do when I wasn't at home were really bad for me, so right now, I'm home."

She glanced over at him, familiar whatever in her eyes. "Do you need me to make the first move, Joey? I will, sure, but I'd prefer you do because I'm not sure it's the greatest idea -"

She kissed him. It was not just a gentle, loving kiss, it was an open your mouth and welcome me in kiss, accompanied by her hiking up her wool skirt and straddling his thighs. It was one hell of a first move. Still, he sat back and said, "Are you sure?"

"Never even once," she said.

He smiled at her surprisingly confident face and ran his hands up her bare thighs, pushing her skirt to her waist. "Okay," he mumbled. He touched her pink cotton panties. He drew little circles with his finger and then up and down, opening her up. "Can you take these off?"

She breathed. The light was on her perfect face, her adult grown up face even if he sometimes saw her again at 10 or 15. He tried not to see her at 10 because then he did not want to have sex with her because that was disgusting. But there was so much he knew about her. He said, "Or not, we can chill, you just sit there like that."

"We're not chilling," Joey said. She moved off and stripped naked faster than he thought possible. It was a pleasure to watch, not that he needed more to get hard. She said, "You're overdressed."

"God, yes," he said.

Joey stretched back on his bed. He laid down next to her. She touched his lower belly and said, "Also, I hadn't seen that tattoo."

"I know," Pacey said. "I was pretty fucking high. Which was for the best because that is a really painful place for a tattoo."

"Do you remember why you got that?" Joey traced the ridiculous thing and then she had her hand on him and she was always his favorite in the whole world to get handjobs from, he loved the way she held his dick, even from the first time she'd seen him his dick.

"I, uh," he exhaled. "It's carving tools for fish," he said. "Cause I carve fish. And debone them."

"Don't say debone," Joey said. She kissed his cheek and then his mouth. "I want you to be my last time, Pacey. My last one."

"Stopping at 15?" He was arching into her hand, gripping her round, perky butt.

"Yes," she said. "How about you?"

"Of course," Pacey said. "Of course, God, forever. No one but you."

It was pretty impressive sex. Pacey'd never been that type of guy who thought coked up sex was the best kind, though he'd heard guys in rehab who swore sober sex couldn't compare. Also, in his experience, there as something about being with Joey. He felt like he knew every millimeter of her between her legs, the stray hairs on the inside of her thighs.

"I love you," he said.

"That was never actually our problem," Joey said.

"Sure, but people like hearing it," Pacey said.

"Oh," she said, smiling. "I love you, too."

!

Joey was pacing around the empty building, looking at the blank walls. "I still can't believe you bought the Icehouse."

"I was the fourth person since your dad burned it down to try to make this place work," Pacey said. "I am the fourth person."

"Are you gonna run it from Boston, or just drive there and back every day?" Joey smiled at him over her shoulder.

"You know what's great about living in town with 15,000 people like Capeside? No NA meetings. There's an AA meeting once a week but even though I have no plans to ever drink again in my life, and they're addicts just like me, I prefer hanging with the people who used what I used," Pacey said.

"It's not because you don't want to see anyone from Capeside?"

Pacey didn't mention that the first time he went to Boston for an early morning NA meeting a month ago, he'd actually run into three people he knew from Capeside, including the loan officer he'd met with to buy this currently ramshackle ugly place. That was none of her business. He said, "Sometimes I need more than one meeting a week, too."

"I like that," Joey said. "Not you needing them, but you admit and you go. Even with your one year chip."

"You don't want to be overconfident," Pacey said. He walked over to Joey and held her from behind. She looked up at the remains of some sort of stenciling on the top of the walls. "That stencil shit is gonna go," Pacey said.

"Thank God," she said. "They would clash with the wings."

"Yeah, on my budget, stripping the walls and putting up my lovely wings will be about the only decoration for the first few months," Pacey said.

"You're spending too much on the kitchen," Joey said.

"You sometimes get world class food from bad kitchens, but I'm not working in a bad kitchen," Pacey said.

She turned around and rested her hands on his chest. "You're so adorable when you talk about your chef stuff," she said.

"When you're Mrs. Witter, I want you to stop calling it my chef stuff," Pacey said.

"I won't be Mrs. Witter," she said.

"You said yes, you're wearing my ring," Pacey said.

"I'm not taking your name."

"Good clarification," Pacey said. He kissed her and looked around at the empty place. "This is going to be good."


End file.
